I haven’t posted in ages on Giving Up Sugar. Mostly this is because once you’ve given up the white stuff there’s little left to say, and I am not one to hang out in my kitchen creating mouth-watering sugar-free treats. (Which is a shame, because I suspect I could make a killing.)

However, some of you on your own sugar-free journey may be interested in my next foray into wellness.

I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s disease at the ripe old age of 27. Hashimoto’s is an autoimmune disease and is the most common cause of hypothyroidism (which I have too).

I was not at all surprised when I received my diagnosis. Most of the women in my family have hypothyroidism, so I knew what was up when I put on a huge amount of weight in 6 months, felt like a slug all the time, had a puffy face, thinning hair and had freezing cold hands. The hands thing was the final piece in the puzzle for me, as I had previously been one of those ridiculously hardy folks who swan around in summer clothing in the middle of winter. But now people would shake my hand and cry out ‘Flipping heck, have you been dipping your hands in ice water?’ Something was definitely wrong.

I had to beg my doctor to run the tests as she didn’t expect someone to have hypothyroidism at 27. But to her credit, she was swayed by my family history and ran the tests (I now realise how fortunate I was that my doctor listened to me. Many people with Hashimoto’s are misdiagnosed as having a mental illness). I’m not kidding when I say it took me 6 more years to fully understand the implications of my condition and to accept the limitations of it. I spent those years ignoring my body, being lackadaisical about taking my medication, pushing myself through the tiredness and brain fog, and generally trying to live as I had before until I gave myself a bad case of burnout.

It was the burnout that forced me to pay more attention to my body and my lifestyle. My body was screaming at me to slow down because it could not take it any more.

So I slowed down and began to recover. Giving up sugar helped my energy levels to increase, and I was able to reduce my thyroid medication a bit, plus I lost weight. Then eating the Trim Healthy Mama way (which is refined sugar-free) helped me shed two more dress sizes and feel more energetic. But it hasn’t quite been enough.

I have always had a tricky case of hypothyroidism. My thyroid levels almost always require tweaking of my medication and I am closely monitored for this. Sometimes I need more thyroxine, sometimes less. Even when my thyroid levels are ‘normal’, I keep having bouts of unexplained tiredness, poor memory, brain fog, irritability and feeling so, so cold. Some of these ‘thyroidy bouts’ as I call them, can last a few weeks or a few months. At the moment I am a bout which has been going on for a couple of months now. Fun times.

Trips to doctors have them treating me like I am a mental health patient, despite the fact that I am a patient with hypothyroidism, complaining of hypothyroidism symptoms. But as my thyroid levels are ‘fine’, doctors don’t seem to know what else to do other than screen me for depression and look confused. I have learned to take my husband with me to all such appointments for back up as I am never taken seriously without having him there to say ‘Yep, what she is saying is absolutely true.’

My thyroidy bouts are not fun, and are very hard on my husband as he has to pick up my slack. I’m a stay-at-home parent to two toddlers, so that’s a lot of crazy slack to be picked up! I’m sick of these bouts affecting me – and my family – despite the fact that my test results are ‘normal’. There has to be more that can be done.

Our genes play a part in the development of autoimmune disease, but diet and lifestyle can reduce the effects once that switch is flicked on. I’m pretty active in the Hashimoto’s online community and have seen many reports from fellow sufferers saying they’d seen a huge reduction in their symptoms by following the Autoimmune Protocol. It’s like the Paleo diet, but harsher. The first phase is an elimination diet where you cut out the usual suspects like grains, eggs, soy, dairy and sugar. But the Autoimmune Protocol goes further. Developed by Dr Sarah Ballentyne – an expert on immunity and inflammation – the protocol also cuts out nuts, seeds, alternative sweeteners, nightshades and NSAIDS (ibuprofen etc). The main focus of the protocol is to eliminate foods that contribute to leaky gut and bad gut flora from the diet. You can read more about the science behind the protocol here.

People with autoimmune diseases can expect to see significant improvement within a few weeks or months, although some may take longer. I feel confident about doing the first phase because it’s not forever. Once a measurable improvement happens, then a slow reintroduction to other foods can begin. Many people discover they react badly to nightshades (tomatoes/potatoes/eggplant/peppers) and have to avoid them for life, and I suspect this might be the case for me. My father is deathly allergic to raw tomato, and my skin often reacts to nightshades when I prepare them for cooking. Other people can successfully reintroduce eggs, nuts and dairy, so I hope I’m one of those!

Food elimination diets are daunting. But if you’ve eaten something all your life, you may be unaware of its impact on your health and well-being. I never truly knew how addicted to sugar I was until I eliminated it and saw improvements in my energy and saiety levels. People who’ve gone AIP report significantly negative reactions to many of the reintroduced foods (like two weeks of feeling yuck), and those reactions are enough to help them avoid that food for life. I’m hopeful that getting to the bottom of any food intolerances will help me kick my thyroidy bouts for good.

I wondered what on earth there would be left for me to eat if I attempted AIP. No eggs. My staple breakfast. No dairy. But, but what’s life without cheese? No curries? I think I might cry.

Help was at hand thanks to my local library and The Autoimmune Paleo Cookbook, by Mickey Trescott. D and I were so impressed by this book, we immediately bought our own copy. Besides being a beautifully designed and photographed cookbook, what had me going ‘okay, this lady is my new BFF’ was that Mickey acknowledges that sticking to AIP during the elimination phase is HARDER THAN HARD. She acknowledges that having to make every single dish, sauce or dressing from scratch feels like a Herculean task if you work full time, have kids, or are sick. You know, from an autoimmune disease. If that’s you, Mickey’s your gal. She has meal plans and shopping lists to ease into the AIP way. There are also many other great AIP books out there if you look online.

I haven’t started AIP yet, but I do have a starting date (28 July). I’m approaching this like I did when I gave up sugar. I’m not quitting until my social calendar is empty. My birthday and a trip away are coming up soon, so I will go AIP after then. I will be turning down dinner invitations and dining out while I’m on the elimination phase because I can’t be bothered with the hassle it would entail. I have a wedding to go to in September and I think I will just tell the beautiful couple not to worry about a meal for me, and take my own food. I want to cause zero hassle on their big day. It will definitely be weird, but when you are on the elimination phase you absolutely cannot cheat. If you have a reaction to something, you probably won’t be able to work out what caused it (Was it the dressing? Were the veges sauted in butter? etc.).

I happened to catch an interview on Radio New Zealand the other week which really pricked up my antennae. It was an interview with Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project, talking about her new book Better than Before. The Happiness Project has sold over 1.5 million copies and struck a chord with people all over the globe. It follows Gretchen’s pursuit to discover what truly makes her happy, and contains a lot of scientific research and wisdom on how to increase your own happiness. She followed that up with the engaging Happier at Home, which charts Gretchen’s experiments to improve several aspects of her life related to her home, including her possessions, her marriage, her children and wider family, her engagement with her community.

In this interview with Kathryn Ryan (if you are really interested I would listen to it now as I don’t know how long Radio NZ keeps their podcasts online for), Gretchen talks about how creating new habits truly can transform our lives. Gretchen argues that if there is something about yourself that you don’t like and want to change, one of the most effective ways to create a lasting change is to form a new habit. A change needs to become that ingrained if it is going to stick long-term.

Gretchen states that our habits are the building blocks of our lives, and are so ingrained that we rarely think about them. Most of us don’t think ‘Shall I brush my teeth today?’ We just do it as part of our daily routine. Therefore she argues that our habits can be the most effective scaffolding for creating a you that is better than the old you.

She goes on to say that in order to successfully create a new habit (like giving up sugar), you must understand how your personality affects the way in which you form habits, because habit formation is not a one-size-fits-all thing. In her research she discovered that most of us fall into one of four groups: Upholders, Questioners, Obligers and Rebels. You can take a quiz here to find out what you are. For example, a questioner has to be convinced that changing something about themselves by forming a certain habit really is the best thing for them. I am an obliger, meaning I often overlook my needs for that of others, so forming a new habit which benefits myself is tricky. If we don’t get our strategies right, new habits just won’t stick.

What I love about Gretchen’s work is that she is PRACTICAL. I have read much about habit formation in my time, and none of it makes as much sense to me as her work does. There are a lot of myths out there (like it only takes 21 days to form a new habit), and Gretchen has sifted through it all. She has some great-yet-simple strategies for the different personality types e.g. say if you are an obliger like me and you want to exercise more – exercise with a friend who will be miffed if you don’t show up, because it is the accountability to someone else that is the key ingredient here. If you want to know more, buy the book!

She also talked about ‘abstainers’ versus ‘moderators’. Moderators are the sort of people who can have a block of chocolate in their desk and eat a square or two a day. Abstainers are people like me, who would scoff the lot straight away, so they find it EASIER to just abstain from chocolate altogether. What this means is that if you are struggling to give up sugar (or carbs, or alcohol, or whatever) it might be because you are an abstainer. Having sugar in the house, or indulging in it here and there is not the best strategy for you.

Obviously what she said resonated with me. Completely abstaining from sugar has worked for me far better than only having a bit here and there. Saying no to offers of treats from well-meaning friends and family is much easier for me than eating it and dealing with the horrible consequences (feeling tired, spike in appetite, craving more sugar etc.).

Anyway, after listening to the podcast D and I talked about some things about ourselves that we’d like to change, and how we might do it, armed with this new knowledge. D is an obliger too (although with very strong questioner tendencies) and wants to cut down his use of his smartphone. He has enlisted me to call him out whenever I see him using it either too much, or at an inappropriate time, i.e. while the kids want to play with him. In turn, as my accountability person, I have enlisted D’s help to ensure I get out of bed early each morning to exercise. As I am an abstainer I have also decided to exercise every day, so that longer lie-ins are just not an option. Hopefully exercise first thing in the morning will be just something that I do, just like brushing my teeth.

Having recently read Happier at Home, I have been inspired to launch a similar project. I will be posting more detail on this soon over at my ‘brain-dump’ blog Tots in Tawhero. And I will certainly keep you posted about whether my sleep-in abstinence strategy works.

If you have some bad habits that you’d like to replace for healthier ones, I highly recommend having a read of Gretchen’s website and books.

To be perfectly frank, I’m rather looking forward to waving 2014 goodbye.

I’ve never known such an annus horribulus, and I’m certainly not the only one feeling this way. Apart from my birth of my gorgeous wee son (cue gratuitous Daniel photo)…

… this year is one I will look back on with much fondness. I spent the first seven months in a pregnancy fatigue funk, which fortunately went away as soon as the baby arrived. The fatigue was replaced with the expected sleep deprivation that babies create, although largely due to Daniel having the dreaded reflux.

Reflux. Ugh. How I loathe thee.

For the first few weeks I had an angel baby. He slept well and was putting on weight like a champ. Then he started to get a bit unsettled. Then really screamy. Then his sleep deteriorated. I suspected reflux, but the diagnosis was complicated by the baby getting a nasty virus doing the rounds, and a hidden tongue tie.

Life descended into chaos. The baby screamed ALL day. I’m not exaggerating. Things got so bad we had a friend come every morning to help out, and had to farm out our daughter as much as possible to her grandmothers because it was impossible for me to spend much time with her. Then my daughter got the virus. Followed by D. And then her grandmothers.

So I am the only well person dealing with a sick, screaming baby; a sick, clingy, only-Mummy-will-do toddler; and a sick, sleep-deprived husband. I seriously thought I was going to lose my mind at one point.

Life has gotten less chaotic, although we are still struggling to manage the baby’s reflux, even with medication. But he is ridiculously cute, which helps a lot! He is predictable at least, and I have been able to spend more quality time with my daughter who delights me with her ever-expanding conversational skills (she’s pretty much into full sentences now) and her silly sense of humour.

The worst thing has been my sister-in-law passing away after a short battle with cancer a few weeks ago. She was only 37. She had multiple health conditions for most of her life, which she courageously managed to rise above. She was an inspiration to most people who met her, and my life is certainly richer from having known her. I’m saddened that my children will never appreciate just how much their Auntie loved them and how important they were to her, and it’s been beyond horrible to see my brother suffering the loss of his much-loved partner in life.

So yeah, 2014 can kiss my ass.

In the midst of all the drama of late, I have done what I always do in tough times – turn to food for comfort.

I’m sorry to say I have been indulging in too much of the white stuff of late. It’s incredibly frustrating to find myself reacting in my old ways when life gets tough. You think you have this addiction conquered and then – wham! Oh no you don’t.

It just goes to show that for many of us, food is an incredibly complex issue. It’s so much more than fuel. If losing weight or getting ‘healthy’ is a simple matter of calories in vs. calories out then there should be more of us out there rocking skinny jeans, and I personally would have an entire wardrobe of body-con dresses.

I have worked with addicts a fair bit in my life, and know I need to treat myself with the same compassion that I would them. I know about triggers. I know that relapses happen. I know that over time I will experience them less and less, until I am eventually free.

The last 2 or 3 weeks have seen my energy levels return to a semblance of normality, so much so that we are considering stopping Eloise’s afternoon care sessions. I reckon I’m up to having her in the afternoons now that I don’t need to sleep for all of it. We’re going to trial having her home all day next week so fingers crossed that I continue to feel fine.

I was quite surprised to find my energy levels improving so late in my pregnancy – generally in the third trimester women tend to get whacked out from carrying around a whole bunch o’ baby. I can’t say it has been due to Trim Healthy Mama either. I’ve found it very hard to stick to as the last few weeks have been filled with family celebrations, trips away and unexpected house guests so we weren’t eating as we normally would. Plus D and I decided to have a ‘frugal week’. Every now and then we shop our pantry, clear out the leftovers and make lots of vegetarian dishes. What we don’t spend out of our usual grocery budget gets given away, usually to a charity (our last donation went to help the relief effort in the Solomon Islands). This time we wanted to donate money to the political party that we support as New Zealand has an election coming up soon. In recent years I’ve felt convicted to support the party that I think has the best policies and representatives with actual cold, hard cash, and making sure that I am a card-carrying party member. We support the Green Party who are one of the minor parties here, but they have gone from strength to strength in the past few years, and I predict they will perform well this year at the election. Anyhow, what I’m trying to say is – it’s hard to afford the protein required for THM when you are being super-frugal for a week 🙂

THM is sugar-free. They advocate using Stevia, Erythritol or Xylitol and there are an incredible amount of THMers out there getting pretty creative in the kitchen. The next few weeks should pretty quiet so I will blog more about it then.

I can’t tell you how nice it is to have energy again. I’m enjoying being able to play with my daughter more and being able to make activities for her to try.

It’s good to be back. Even if it is just for a few weeks until the newborn sleep deprivation kicks in! 🙂

Eloise had a Plunket appointment in the afternoon, so there wasn’t much point in her going to her carer for the afternoon. It was the first afternoon I’ve had in ages where looking after her didn’t feel like a massive struggle. Often my pregnancy fatigue has me clock-watching when I have Eloise to myself of an afternoon; I’m usually willing time to go faster so that D can help me once he’s finished work. Not that Eloise is a tough kid – in fact she’s a generally a very placid and happy little girl. But the fatigue often means I am too tired to go for walks, go to the playground or to go visiting, so those afternoons when she’s not in care can draaaaaag. And it can make for one bored toddler (although I am fortunate that she is obsessed with books and is happy to be read to for quite a while)!

It felt wonderful to care for my child all day by myself without wilting like a lettuce leaf. I’d almost forgotten what it felt like.

I am now officially into the third trimester, so it does feel like there is light at the end of the tunnel. Despite resembling a beached narwhal (minus the adorable pointy tusk), when I am not fatigued I have generally fared much better this pregnancy than my last one. Hardly any nausea, heartburn, *ahem* constipation etc.

I’m also at a point where I feel ready to give Trim Healthy Mama eating a go. THM is an insanely popular book in Christian circles and seems to be a successful way of eating for many, many people. In a nutshell, THM is a carb-controlled eating plan that emphasises ditching sugar and most carbs, and embracing healthy fats and whole foods (as such, it is not a huge change to how we eat anyway). If you want to make the most of the recipes in the tome-like book, it does require some expensive and hard-to-find-in-New-Zealand ingredients – but the ‘plan’ can be followed without it.

I don’t want to go into the THM way of eating as the authors do such a great job of explaining how tweaking what you eat in combination can make a difference to whether you burn fat or store it. And it would make this post extremely long! Let me just say that THM makes good sense to me and does not involve complicated food restrictions or calorie-counting. THM not a ‘diet’ – because it would be all kinds of crazy to go on a diet while pregnant(!). Again, there is no calorie counting in THM. I can eat as much as I like, and there is lots of great advice in the book and on Facebook for those of us who are pregnant or nursing as our nutritional requirements are different.

I’ve made several aborted attempts to start THM over the past few months, but have been thwarted by pregnancy food aversions (I couldn’t face eating eggs, for example) which seem to have finally gone away. I’ve been a Facebook THM member for several months now, and hardly a day goes by without someone posting their weight loss or improved health success story. Many members have posted about how GOOD and how ENERGETIC they feel on the THM way of eating, and that’s why I have been desperate to give it a go.

My doctor has run a barrage of tests to make sure I don’t have anything seriously wrong with me, but he just thinks Baby no 2 is simply putting more stress on my thyroid (I have hypothyroidism) than Eloise did. Basically there’s nothing I can do but rest and pray things come right with my thyroid once the baby is here. It’s a boy by the way!

D and I have been having a very tough time and are just feeling like we have absolutelynothingleft in our tanks. A couple of weeks ago Eloise and I got some gastro-bug (again!) and were both out of action for a week, and as soon as Eloise had recovered she promptly had a teething episode which saw her sleeping worse than a newborn.

Poor D is working hard to provide for us and has to pick up my slack (some days I can barely look after Eloise) so he is on Eloise duty a lot. As far as my fatigue goes I have good days and bad days. The annoying thing is that I absolutely cannot suck-it-up-and-push-through-it. If I try, I pay for it for the next couple of days. For example, last week I had a church event in the evening that I desperately wanted to attend. I was exhausted, but I dragged my carcass there and had a great time. The next day I got up, but after half an hour I felt like I might collapse if I didn’t go and lie down. I ended up sleeping for several hours that morning and was very grateful that my mother-in-law was free to watch Eloise.

It turns out it’s quite hard to be kind, and light-hearted and to keep my sense of humour when I feel like a slug for weeks on end. I’ve been squabbling with D, and am generally leaving grouchiness in my wake.

So after a council of war, D and I have decided to hunker down until the baby arrives. I for one, am scared about going into life with a newborn and 18 month old when we are exhausted right now. We’ve decided to say ‘no’ to any extraneous demands on our time. Apart from a few church things, and D going to Toastmasters, we’re going to be homebodies, thank you very much. For me it means saying ‘no’ to things like going to lots of Easter church services, or getting up for the ANZAC dawn parade. Saying ‘no’ to requests for me to help out with playgroups or ukulele lessons. Basically this will be me:

Like this:

It’s been a good three days and I am already down 600g. But then, that’s probably because I’ve been really hungry!

Aside from Monday’s icky bruschetta, the food on the 12WBT has been nice and of course, sugar-free. Monday night’s dinner was really lovely – a lamb salad with mint/yoghurt dressing. It’s definitely a recipe I’d use again.

Yummo!

On the programme you have to weigh all your food which is a total pain, but it’s helped me to realise that my portion sizes have been too big. I simply eat too much. I expect that this is a legacy of years of overeating, even though I am now sugar-free (although I certainly eat less than I did in my sugary days thanks to being sugar-free). I’m going to have to train my body to get used to a bit less food. I’m even on the look out for vintage dinner plates! Did you know the average dinner plate has grown 25% larger since the 1990’s? Here’s a link to an article about how even the colour of your plates and tablecloth can cause you to overeat.

I’ve really missed my protein and needed to eat snacks as a result, so I swapped out the carby/fructosey breakfasts for my usual bacon & egg this morning (yes, that’s allowed on the food plan) and voila! No morning tea required.

My one criticism of the food is that many of the lunches are time-consuming, but I guess as least they can be swapped out for quick sandwiches like this one…

Roast capsicum and olive tapenade sarnie

I have absolutely no complaints about my fitness programme however. Last week I did a baseline fitness test which includes the distance you can run in 12 minutes. I did the 12 minute test again today (every Wednesday is a ‘check-in’ day) and I’ve already increased my distance. The programme has 3 days of running – which includes sprints, and 3 days of core strengthening and toning. I’m doing the intermediate programme and I’ve been delighted to find it challenging but not daunting so far.

I’ve started to run around the Basin Reserve (our local cricket ground) which has turned out to be the perfect place for me to run, after struggling to find somewhere nearby that doesn’t have ginormous hills. It also means I get to end my workouts by going up these steps:

There are 108 steps. Yep, I counted.

You can’t really tell how steep they are in the photo, but nothing gets my heart rate up faster than these babies!

I must admit that I’m not actually a fan of ‘quick’ transformation diets and programmes. Most of them are completely unsustainable, so please don’t think I have any illusions about this one. I’ve never even seen Michelle Bridges in action. You can read about my reasons for signing up to it here. But I must say…I like 12WBT.

I was impressed with the ‘pre-season’ tasks you had to do before the round kicked off this Monday. The goal-setting task made me dig quite deep, and those goals will be revisited every four weeks on the programme. There are a series of mini-milestones you can set yourself too (one of mine is to buy a new dress…sorry D).

One of the tasks was to tell people you are doing the programme, to put it out there, to make yourself accountable. Of all the tasks, this one was the hardest for me – even more so than taking a ‘before’ picture of myself. I felt embarrassed. But I did it, and was immediately inundated with likes and lovely messages of support.

I also like that every few days there is something 12WBT-related going on to keep you in the game. On Sunday night there’s a video message to get your head set for the week, weekly challenges on Mondays, a stats day on Wednesdays, meal and fitness plans for the following week on Thursdays, plus a few other things as well. If you choose to engage with it, there’s probably enough in the programme to keep you on track. I feel it’s doable, but then it’s not a huge lifestyle change for me, given that D and I try to eat healthily and I was exercising regularly anyway. But I reckon even die-hard couch potatoes could do the programme and see results. Whether you can keep it up in ‘real life’ is another story.

I reckon if I can take a good exercise programme and the portion control message out of it, that’s good enough for me.

My 12 week body transformation programme started off with a bit of a hiss rather than a roar. Bad weather scuppered my plans to exercise outdoors (seriously Wellington, what’s with all the wet mornings lately?!), so I worked out to a video on YouTube instead. I was disappointed at not being able to get outside as the 10K exercise plan looks really good. And very achievable. Ah well – tomorrow!

I was laid low over the weekend with a bit of a bug so D did the shopping in preparation for the week – which he described as an ‘epic shop’. It was certainly a lot more expensive than our usual grocery bill, but then we did get some items that we wouldn’t normally buy and which will be used in subsequent weeks (olive tapenade anyone?).

I was excited to get the meal plan, and even more excited to see that the food looked delicious and didn’t require loads of outlandish ingredients. It also didn’t look terribly different from what D and I usually eat, although the lunches are definitely more elaborate. The plans are very flexible, so if you don’t like something you can swap it out for something else that you do like. Personally, I love trying out new recipes, so there’s a few things in this week’s food that I wouldn’t normally cook for D and I.

I must admit that I am very pleased the food plan is flexible as I hated today’s breakfast. It was Strawberry ‘Bruschetta’. I am one of those strange breeds of people who don’t like sweet things for breakfast, but I thought ‘what the heck, I love strawberries’. It took up my fructose allowance for the day, but that’s okay.

The meal was very simple – two pieces of wholemeal toast (the bruschetta), spread with ricotta cheese, topped with strawberries and sprinkled with some raw cacao powder (that was my addition, Michelle’s recipe uses plain cocoa). I love every single item individually, but together it tasted…wrong. I dunno, it’s probably just me being picky, folks.

It looked so yummy!

I ate the breakfast around 8am and was hungry by 10am. By 10:45am I had to have a snack. I normally have a high protein breakfast which keeps me going until 1 or 2pm, so I will definitely be swapping out the bruschetta for a bacon and egg ‘roll’ in the future, as I know I won’t need any snacks.

Fortunately the rest of today’s food looks terrific. They say that 80% of your weight is due to the food you eat, so I will be very interested to see how I look and feel after following the plan.

And on that note, I have been doing a little better than when I last blogged. I got my butt out of bed to exercise several times last week, and tried a really delicious drink designed especially for those suffering from adrenal burnout (thanks so much for that harrisfamilyadventure!). It’s from the book ‘Trim Healthy Mama‘, and the authors advocate a whole food, low carb, low sugar diet. I think the combinations they want you to eat foods in sounds a little complicated (bear in mind I haven’t got my copy yet so I’m just going on what I read on the net) but sustainable, and seems to be changing the lives of thousands of people for the better. I’ve ordered their book and will do a review of it on here at some point. I plan to give it a whirl next year once I’ve finished with 12wbt.

You probably would be too if you had to juggle a 10 month old baby, work commitments, and getting ready to move towns. Feeling stress is a natural reaction to my circumstances.

Yesterday it hit me that the stress I’m experiencing is why I’ve been in Blahland. I’m fatigued, irritable, weepy, having trouble sleeping and needing lots more sleep than usual, along with having little motivation at the moment. I haven’t run in over a week. Not good, folks.

There is little I can do about my external circumstances right now. Eloise can’t magically grow into a self-sufficient ‘schoolie’ overnight, nor can I avoid the palaver that naturally occurs when you move house. Life is like that. I know that once we have moved and are settled in our new town, my stress levels will go back down. I simply hate moving. It never gets any easier, and I’ve moved 28 times in my life…

I do however, need to manage this stress EXTREMELY CAREFULLY. And I mean treat myself with kid gloves, big time. I’ve had to kick my self-help up several notches. I am a burnout survivor and the unfortunate result of having had burnout is that my body undergoes a huge overreaction to even the smallest stress.

It’s difficult to describe what burnout is like as it varies between people. There seems to be a stereotype that it only happens to type-A workaholics.This is just not true. Burnout (also known as adrenal burnout syndrome) can happen to anyone, at any time of their life, regardless of occupation. If you check that link out, you’ll see that even children can get burnout.

In my case it had nothing to do with my work. Not a damn thing. It was my life outside of work that reached epically busy proportions. When I lived in London I spent two years being out almost every night, and pretty much every weekend as well. I wasn’t a raging party-goer by any means, just wanting to make the most of every opportunity to go sight-seeing/flit over to Europe/visit museums and art galleries/go to concerts and lectures/volunteer/study/grow spiritually/help my church/hang out with my amazing friends/etc. I had FOMO at its worst. I also had a sick mother back home in New Zealand to worry about, and her being in and out of hospital while I was on the other side of the world almost sent me gaga.

I caught myself on the edge of a nervous breakdown. You can read about how I recovered here. It took me about a year and a half to recover.

I don’t drink coffee but I can only describe the feeling of burnout as akin to drinking 10 cups of coffee. I felt wired all the time. I couldn’t relax. I had trouble falling asleep and trouble staying asleep. My chest felt tight, like it had forgotten how to exhale. I was exhausted all the time. I simply cannot convey how weary in my bones I felt. At the end of each day my body would ache as if I had just completed a day of hard, physical labour (I had a desk job). Sleeping Beauty’s trick of sleeping for 100 years sounded not long quite long enough to me. I lost my sense of fun. I couldn’t concentrate. I had no energy to do the things I previously loved. I adore reading books and watching movies, but for a whole six months the only thing I could concentrate on without feeling exhausted afterwards was episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer as they required little thought and made me laugh. My faith in God got me through this very dark time.

I got help from a counsellor who diagnosed me with severe adrenal burnout syndrome. I got help because my ‘wiredness’ eventually turned into an anxiety disorder that required medication, and I was acting out in very un-Angela ways. Lots of burnout sufferers turn to drugs and alcohol to cope, so I’m lucky I got help in time otherwise I may have gone down that path, who knows? Now, I look back and it was like I was a completely different person. But I didn’t go down that path. I recovered, got off medication and have been (mostly) okay for four years.

However, recovery from burnout is not straightforward. Many people never recover, and most people never return to the energy levels they had prior to burnout. I myself operate on 80%. And that’s on a good day. The only way I can explain it is that it’s like your body has run in this state of extreme stress for so long (and it does it for ages after the original cause of the stress has gone) that it becomes your body’s default setting. Like when you lose data on your computer and you have to reset it to a particular date to recover what you’ve lost. When I experience even just a small amount of stress, my body reverts to how it was during burnout. Yeah, believe me, it’s a pain in the *ss.

So when stress strikes, it’s action stations, all hands on deck to help me manage it. I start by invoking my first principles. I saw a psychologist talk about these principles years ago on Oprah (so it must be true, right?). I was only a teenager at the time, a world away from marriage and children, but what he said resonated with me at the time, and still does.

1. You need to look after yourself first.

2. Then your significant relationship.

3. Then your children.

Now before you horrified parents out there berate me, hear me out.

Soooo many people – especially women I reckon – put everyone else first. ‘My kids are my life’ or ‘He really needs me, I have to help him. I’ll stop what I am doing immediately’ are things that I hear people say quite often. This sort of thinking is bulls**t. YOU ARE NO GOOD ANYONE ELSE IF YOU AREN’T TAKING CARE OF YOURSELF FIRST. If you are running on empty, you can’t give to others. It’s that simple. I love my child so much it hurts. But she’s not my life. She is a wonderful part of my full life. When I am tired and run down, I am a mediocre mother and wife. I want better than mediocre for D and Eloise.

In my own case I’m talking about taking care of my physical health, but this principle applies to all aspects of life. If you aren’t feeling fulfilled in your marriage or your job, or have put your hopes and dreams on hold to take care of others, any feelings of resentfulness spill over into your life. If you are stressed out and exhausted, you’re probably going to struggle to be the best partner, parent, friend or workmate that you can be.

When you take care of yourself first (whether it’s something like taking the time to rest, or starting that French class you always wanted to take) and are feeling okay with life, this positively affects the relationships you have with others. When I take care of myself by doing things that I find life-giving, then I bring that into my relationship with D. When D and I are doing great, that spills into how we care for Eloise (who is a very happy and contented bubba, I must add), and into my work, my friendships, serving others – you get the picture.

Right now I need lots of rest. I am not going to beat myself up for not running, although I hope to go tomorrow. If I find it totally exhausts my body – as vigorous exercise can when you have burnout – I will take a break for a few days more. I am fortunate enough to be in a position where I can potter about slowly with my work at the moment. I’m also blessed to have lots of family around to help with Eloise. I’ve scheduled in a couple of chat-fests with my friends. Housework can get stuffed. And I will ease up on my blogging for a bit.

If you are feeling a bit burnt out, lose the guilt and indulge in some ME time. Sometimes being selfish is the best thing you can do for others.

Like this:

While I was stuck in Blahland last week I thought long and hard about what to do with myself to get out of the blahs. I figured I needed a bit of help to re-focus and get my head back in the right space. But as I am moving towns in a few weeks and we’ll soon be entering the Christmas season (gasp! Already?), life is just a bit too up in the air for me to commit to any kind of fitness class or to see a nutritionist about why my baby weight just won’t budge.

A few bloggers I follow have done Michelle Bridges 12 week body transformation programmes and have had some great results. My Aussie readers will probably be quite familiar with her. I’ve never seen it but she’s a trainer on the Australian version of The Biggest Loser. I only know her through her fitness articles that appear on a New Zealand media site and she’s always come across as a ‘straight up’, practical sort of person to me.

I vacillated about whether to sign up or not – mostly because there’s lots of people out there who talk about signing up to do ‘another round because they’ve put on a few kilos since they did the last round’ – which says to me that the programme just isn’t sustainable.

But then I thought ‘well, what do I really need right now?‘ My motivation levels aren’t that bad. I’m still running. I do it by myself without any help except for the odd time D threatens to tickle me out of bed when I’m tempted to hit the snooze button (I am extremely ticklish…). I’m still eating sugar-free, and that just feels like normal life now.

I decided I needed:

to up my current level of fitness

tweak my diet to see if I can shed that weight

to connect with others for encouragement and accountability

to make it through moving/the silly season

My best friend R has been seeing a great nutritionist in her home town (close to where we are moving to), and I have been very impressed with the advice and holistic approach he has given to R. It’s sensible. Sustainable. Achievable. (Plus R looks fabulous and is feeling vibrant and healthy.) D and I plan to see him ourselves in the new year, when all the moving dust has settled. But the new year is still several weeks away and I need something now…

The round starts on 11 November. I’m doing the 10k running programme which is not the slightest bit startling as I was doing a 5 to 10k running programme anyway. But I’ve already connected with an incredibly nice bunch of people and am looking forward to the round getting underway soon.

I’m not 100% sure as I haven’t got the meal plans yet, but I think Michelle Bridges does advocate using some low-fat food. If that’s the case, there’s no way I will be following the plans to the letter as I am a diehard ‘wholefooder’. I’ll just substitute low fat for full fat, thank you very much. Anyway, it’s the fitness training aspect that I am most interested in.

One of the things I like about Michelle is that she’s a firm believer that your mindset is crucial to making long-lasting changes. To her, hearing people say ‘I’m too busy to exercise’ is like someone saying ‘I’m too busy to brush my teeth’. She reckons exercising should be no big deal – just part of your daily routine.

Part of the programme gives the participants tasks to help change their thoughts about themselves, about food and nutrition, and about exercise. The first task was great. You really had to take a hard look at yourself and dig deep. One of things I had to do was list all the excuses I use not to exercise, like ‘I’m too tired’, ‘People might make fun of me’, ‘I’m too busy’ or ‘It’s raining’. Boy, I use that first excuse a lot! Michelle is all about setting yourself up for success to overcome all your excuses.

Somethings I do already so I have fewer excuses that stop me from running are to lay my clothes out the night before, and to run first thing in the morning. I’ve tried exercising at other times of the day, but something almost always came up. A meeting would run over time, or I’d simply feel too tired. At least in the morning I get up, run, and it’s over and done with. But looking at my number one complaint of being ‘too tired’ made me realise that I really, really need to make sure I go to bed earlier than I have been.

I am someone who needs at least eight hours of sleep. At least. In fact, more is better. Some people can function on five or six hours a night and seem to cope okay. I am not one of them. Tiredness very quickly reduces me to a teary, irritable, bitchy mess. And many days when my alarm has gone off I haven’t had enough sleep because D and I have gone to bed just too darned late.

My solution to my I’m-too-tired-to-go-running excuse is to get my IT guru husband D to put something on my computer that shuts it off at 9pm so I am in bed by 9:30pm and not catching up on Facebook or reading terribly important lifehacks on Buzzfeed. Yes. My bedtime will officially make me a Nana. But I will be a fit Nana 🙂